


Don't Ever Think Too Much

by starsandgraces



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-14
Updated: 2010-10-14
Packaged: 2017-10-12 16:02:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandgraces/pseuds/starsandgraces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chekov never stops talking. Sulu never stops thinking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Ever Think Too Much

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [withthepilot](http://withthepilot.livejournal.com/).

Chekov never stops talking.

Sulu's pretty sure that even while he's asleep, Chekov probably mutters about whatever's running through his head at the time. He's thought about bribing Chekov's roommate to let him into their quarters after Chekov's gone to bed, but he's fairly certain that would be taken entirely the wrong way (and, knowing the _Enterprise_ , everyone would have heard all about it by morning).

They're in the mess, Chekov sitting in the seat opposite Sulu, and he's waving his fork around as he chatters animatedly about some new discovery in quantum physics that's just a little over Sulu's head. Deciding it's a lost cause, Sulu lets it flow over him and just watches; the occasional nod or noise of assent is enough to convince Chekov he still has a captive audience. Which is true—just not in the way Chekov would expect.

Watching him talk about... whatever, Sulu wonders if there's any time that Chekov would stop talking. Not when he's alone, certainly. He's watched him wandering along corridors while he's on a break, staring into space and muttering under his breath. If anyone comes even close to falling into step with him, Chekov immediately turns his attention on them, beaming, and explains the intricacies of his latest theory on the practical applications of dark matter in warp engines. Sulu would swear on his favourite Audliaen pineapple that he's seen Spock's eyes glaze over once Chekov really gets going.

Sulu doesn't think it's weird that he pays so much attention to this one quirk Chekov has. Everyone does that in space, looks more closely at their friends. Out here, there's nothing much else to look at. I Spy stops being interesting very quickly when you mostly only see black and stars (and if something new and exciting does show up, it's generally attacking the ship and there's no time for games—I Spy A Decloaking Klingon Warbird has never caught on, despite the captain's best efforts). Even back home on Earth, Sulu enjoyed people watching, using it as a way to hone his skills in interpreting body language. He thinks, perhaps vainly, that it's more than a little useful when he's fencing.

Somehow, Chekov is eating and talking at the same time. _He doesn't even sound muffled_ , Sulu thinks in amazement, _is that even possible_? and he wonders if Chekov has another way to breathe, like a dolphin or a whale. He makes a mental note to ask Doctor McCoy about it the next time he sees him. You never know.

He looks down and watches Chekov's fingers twisting as he plays with his paper napkin, tearing strips out of it almost absent-mindedly. No wonder the kid eats so much; he never stops moving either. Maybe he doesn't have time to choose between talking and eating, or talking and anything else. Sulu can't imagine him still or quiet; Chekov is too vibrant.

Idly, he wonders if Chekov talks this much while he's having sex. Which in turn makes him wonder if Chekov _is_ having sex. His friend hasn't said anything about seeing anyone on the ship, but he also used to ask Sulu for his advice on getting someone's attention, something which has stopped in the past few months. But Chekov never told Sulu whose attention he was after, and he hasn't heard any gossip from any of the yeomen about Chekov hooking up with someone. Secrets just don't happen on starships, in Sulu's experience, and especially not to someone who talks as much as Chekov.

There's no way to tell if he'll ever run out of things to say. They were captured, once, on an away mission, and Chekov talked the entire time they were in the prison cells. Sulu was grateful for it then, because it was the only thing any of them had to distract themselves from the sounds of the other prisoners being tortured. He hadn't run out of words for the two full days they were trapped there.

" _Hikaru_ ," Chekov says loudly. He's frowning all of a sudden.

Sulu jerks in his seat, back to the present, his eyes flicking up to meet Chekov's piercing gaze guiltily. He only calls Sulu by his first name if Sulu's done something to piss him off, so apparently this isn't the first time Chekov's tried to get his attention. "Sorry. I was miles away." He forces an apologetic smile and Chekov smiles as well, relaxing.

"I think, miles? No. You are light years away this time," he teases, and Sulu suddenly wonders how many times Chekov has noticed that he isn't really paying attention when they're together.

***

Doctor McCoy just looks at him strangely when Sulu brings up his dolphin theory. He mutters something darkly about space madness and edges out of the turbolift, half-jogging away down the corridor. The only time Sulu's seen him moving faster than a walk before now is when Kirk's done something spectacularly stupid during an away mission.

Maybe it wasn't the _smartest_ question he's ever asked, but that still might have been too extreme a reaction. He was just curious, after all.

***

When alpha shift starts, there are two conspicuous absentees from the bridge crew. Kirk, Sulu would expect this from. Not because he's a bad captain; if anything, it's the opposite. More than once he's stopped on the way to the bridge to talk to one or more of his crew members, just to see how they are. It's both admirable and completely frustrating.

Chekov, on the other hand, is never late. He's usually early, even, and this change in established routine hasn't made the officer Chekov relieves each morning any less surly.

Spock is about to order an ensign to find a replacement navigator (and probably a replacement captain) when Chekov rushes onto the bridge, looking far too pleased with himself for someone who is normally terrified of doing something wrong. Pleased with himself and, Sulu suddenly realises, rather well-fucked. That's unexpected. He flashes a bright grin at Sulu and slides into his seat.

And about thirty seconds later, Kirk comes onto the bridge as well, straightening his uniform. He looks smug and really, how is he supposed to know if that's the regular "Goddamn, I'm Captain James Tiberius Kirk" smugness or something else? _Jesus, is this for real?_ , thinks Sulu, and he tries not to stare at either of them. Kirk strides across the room to stand behind Chekov's chair, clapping him on the shoulder. "You ready, Chekov?"

"Aye, Keptin!"

Sulu feels a little bit sick.

The shift continues much as it should, with no unforeseen attacks and nothing going wrong in general. They're currently on their way to a planet called Marfik III, where they're needed to mediate a disagreement between two species who each claim they discovered the planet first. With the course laid in and the ship at warp, Sulu doesn't have a lot to do, and his mind begins to wander. He glances around the bridge subtly, watching the other officers. Uhura and Spock are talking in low voices by his station, Kirk is sprawled in his chair with his eyes half-closed, and Chekov is diligently working on something on one of his PADDs.

Behind Chekov's ear, there's a little curl where his hair's starting to grow out of its regulation cut. Sulu squints at it out of the corner of his eye. Half under the curl is a bite mark, which is pretty definitive proof in Sulu's eyes. "Oh, fuck," he murmurs, quickly looking back at his console in case someone heard him.

Sulu doesn't want to think about Kirk fucking Chekov but a tiny, traitorous part of his mind seems to whisper, _in the chair, you know it'd be in the chair_ , even though they obviously can't have been in the chair; everyone was on the bridge and you'd have to be dead not to notice that going on. That part of Sulu's brain paints a very vivid picture, though.

It's easy enough to imagine Kirk naked; he comes back from away missions missing half his uniform often enough that most of the crew is familiar with at least his nipples, if not everything else. Chekov's naked as well, perched in the captain's lap, his slender thighs tensed with the effort of holding himself in position and a look of concentration on his face. He tilts his face up slightly as Kirk pulls him down onto his cock, hard and fast and dirty, parting his lips and muttering in Russian.

"Status report, Ensign Chekov," Kirk says with a grunt, thrusting into him at a new angle.

Chekov groans, his eyelashes fluttering. "Everything is - _ahhh_ \- progressing as expected, sir." He presses his palms against Kirk's chest and leans against him, rocking his hips, riding him steadily. Kirk leans in too, scraping his teeth along the soft skin behind Chekov's ear. A litany of muddled Russian and some other language that could be Standard and could be something else entirely spills out of those lips of his as he bounces on the captain's cock.

It can't be the captain, though. He might have something of a reputation, but surely even he wouldn't go this far? Sulu likes to think he knows both Kirk and Chekov well enough to have noticed something like this going on, and he's fairly certain that Kirk wouldn't be subtle enough to keep it under wraps, let alone Chekov. You can't draw a conclusion from one piece of circumstantial evidence and one rather hefty sexual fantasy, Sulu tells himself sternly. Even if he wouldn't kick either party involved out of bed.

Pausing to compose himself, Sulu tries to drop his head forwards slightly to hide his sudden blush. Unfortunately, he accidentally loses control somehow and bangs his forehead on his console, and Chekov almost jumps out of his skin. He mutters a quick apology, not daring to look Chekov in the eye. When his break comes, Sulu's off the bridge almost before his relief arrives.

He is _not_ going to think about Chekov and Kirk again. That's just going too far.

***

"Chekov talks to you, right?" Sulu asks Scotty one day. Scotty is technically off duty but he's still down in Engineering, tinkering with something inside a Jefferies tube. He waves a hand at Sulu.

"Pass me that screwdriver, will you? The cross-head." Sulu places it into the outstretched hand and repeats his question. "Aye, the little Russian? He comes down here and talks _at_ me. That's got it!" Something clanks loudly in the tube and Scotty swears enthusiastically, climbing back out.

"Are you alright?"

Scotty nods, putting the screwdriver back into his toolkit and rubbing his hands clean on his trousers. "Nothing wrong here. So, what did you want?"

"Chekov," Sulu says again, trying to sound casual. "Has he mentioned seeing anyone special?"

It doesn't seem to fool Scotty, who looks at him with amusement. "Isn't that the kind of thing he'd tell you, not me? We mostly talk about engineering, maths and physics, y'know, not relationships," Scotty pauses and pats the wall next to him, "apart from the one we all have with this pretty lady."

Sulu laughs awkwardly. "Well, you know. He talks a lot, he might have said something."

"Have you tried asking him?" Scotty says. "Seems to me that'd be the easiest way to find out. Because, and I'm not saying he _has_ told me anything, but if he had said something in confidence, I wouldn't want to spread it around."

"But he hasn't told you anything?"

It could just be the lighting in Engineering, but Scotty seems to blush faintly. "Not a word, lad."

Sulu's head is suddenly filled with an image of Chekov on his knees in front of the engineer, his lips stretched wide around Scotty's cock but still somehow managing to mutter a stream of equations onto his skin. Scotty's fingers are clenched in Chekov's curls and their eyes are locked onto each other. Sulu shudders faintly, blood rushing to his dick, and he makes his excuses to a confused-looking Scotty before rushing out of Engineering.

***

Sulu tries not to spend too much time alone in his quarters when he can avoid it. He finds it leaves him more time to think than he's very comfortable with, so instead he spends his free time working in the botany lab or fencing in the gym. Sometimes, though, it can't be avoided.

He doesn't consciously start thinking about Chekov, but by the time he realises he is, he's already cradling his half-hard cock in his palm. He can close his eyes and pretend it's someone else's hand, or mouth, or... anything, really. He rolls onto his stomach and imagines he's lying half on top of Chekov, lazily thrusting against his hip as they kiss. Chekov murmurs into his mouth, "Sulu, Sulu," and then, " _Hikaru_."

It's the nicest thing he can imagine Chekov saying over and over again.

"Jesus, Chekov," he says, pressing his face to his pillow—no, to the crook of Chekov's neck. He can almost feel Chekov's legs lifting to wrap around his waist, and he tightens his fingers around his cock in response, moving them faster with a small gasp.

But once (he imagines) he's inside Chekov, he tries to pace himself and fucks him so slowly it's hardly bearable, until the words that spill from Chekov's mouth aren't making sense in any language; they're just nonsense syllables and half-formed phrases. Then he manages to gasp something in Russian and comes hard, and the look on his face is too much for Sulu, even though he's the one who dreamt it up.

He grunts and manages to turn onto his back in time to avoid messing up the sheets, instead coming across his stomach and chest. "Fuck," he says to himself when he catches his breath. He grabs for something to clear up the mess—the t-shirt he wore when he worked out earlier in the evening—and then gets up to toss it down the laundry chute. He feels oddly guilty about the whole thing, even though it's certainly not the first time he's thought about Chekov while he jerks off.

Eventually, he tries to put the feeling aside and pulls on a pair of pyjama pants, curling up on his side in bed and trying to sleep so he can forget about the whole thing.

But sleep doesn't come easily. Insomnia isn't uncommon in space; as much as everyone attempts to stay on a standard twenty-four hour day, when it always looks like night outside it's easy for your body clock to get turned around. Sulu has mostly adjusted now, but he still occasionally falls victim to it. Tonight is turning out to be one of those nights; after two hours of tossing and turning he decides he's going to have to go to sickbay and ask whoever's on duty if they can give him something for it. He hopes it isn't Doctor McCoy. McCoy's been shooting him odd looks ever since Sulu asked him that _perfectly reasonable_ question about Chekov.

He sighs and gets out of bed, looking for a clean t-shirt to put on. The corridors are mostly deserted during gamma shift, as the majority of the crew is sleeping, and it feels strange to be walking through the ship as if he's the only one on it. Sulu can almost understand how Scotty feels about the _Enterprise_ at times like these, when instead of the hum of conversation the only hum you can hear is the ship's engines: a sound that's so easy to overlook during the day.

In the turbolift, he leans against the wall and closes his eyes briefly. Perhaps while he's seeing the doctor, he can ask for something that'll stop him from thinking so much all the time. Surely someone's invented that by now.

Sickbay is empty, all the biobeds unoccupied. Sulu looks around for the medical officer on duty but the place genuinely seems deserted. "Hello...?" he calls out half-heartedly, deciding that whoever it is has probably just fallen asleep in the office and maybe he can deal with the insomnia on his own after all. He's not particularly surprised when no one answers, and after a pause just to make sure, he turns to leave.

That's when Sulu hears something. It's not obvious, not a noise that would really draw his attention at any other time, but in the ostensibly lifeless sickbay in the middle of the night, his curiosity gets the better of him and he decides to follow the sound to its source. He waits patiently for the noise to come again, and this time when it does, it's a little different, a little more urgent. It is also coming from McCoy's office.

The door is propped open by a PADD. The gap is barely large enough to notice, which is probably why Sulu didn't before. He kneels down to pick it up; it's obviously fallen off a desk or something and its owner will be missing it. He realises the PADD belongs to Chekov a fraction of a second before someone in the office moans lowly. Sulu can't help looking through the gap. It takes a moment for him to process what he's seeing and when he does, he claps one hand over his mouth to prevent himself from making any noise, digging the fingers of his other hand into his thigh.

Chekov is stark naked and bent over McCoy's desk, bracing himself with both hands as the good doctor pounds into him from behind. McCoy is still mostly dressed, wearing his black undershirt and uniform trousers, though the latter are pushed down to his thighs. He's the one who keeps moaning, his lips pressed to the side of Chekov's neck. Occasionally he bites down ( _and that explains the mark behind his ear the other day_ , Sulu thinks, feeling strangely detached from reality), and Chekov's eyelashes flutter as he lets out a needy sigh. But he doesn't say anything. Sulu's never known Chekov to be quiet for this long.

Carefully, so he doesn't alert them to his presence with an overly loud noise, Sulu moves one hand over the thin cotton covering his cock. It doesn't take more than a few light rubs and squeezes to encourage it to full hardness. He knows he ought to feel guilty about this, jerking himself off to the sight of his friend fucking his... secret boyfriend? Sulu doesn't even know what McCoy is to Chekov.

Some sort of signal passes between them, or at least it must have, because McCoy pulls out and Chekov turns over. He lifts himself onto the edge of the desk and wraps his long legs around McCoy's hips to urge him closer, dropping his head back when McCoy thrusts into him again.

But it's different now, more tender. Chekov reaches up to kiss McCoy, and it's so intimate that Sulu suddenly feels ashamed for spying on this. This isn't just fucking, there are feelings involved here. Feelings he had no idea Chekov had, for all he talks about everything else that runs through his head.

Sulu gets up quietly and slightly awkwardly, given how hard his dick is, and sneaks back out of sickbay and to his quarters.

***

At breakfast a few days later, Sulu hesitantly asks Chekov if he's seeing anyone, and Chekov owns up to the McCoy thing.

"I thought you might be fucking Kirk, for a while," Sulu admits sheepishly.

"Oh, sometimes we do," Chekov says. "He likes that very much."

Sulu does not enjoy spending the first couple of hours of his shift with toast in his sinuses.


End file.
